


Who are you, Peter Nureyev?

by AWalkingParadox



Series: Pain and Words and Random Things [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Except I take a detour and I don’t now what happened, Hurt/Comfort, I wrote most of this in 1am help, M/M, Rita gives Peter the shovel talk, Some Descriptions of Violence, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 14:44:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18551884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AWalkingParadox/pseuds/AWalkingParadox
Summary: When Rita had asked to talk to Peter in private, he knew it wasn’t going to be fun. The look Juno had given him out of the corner of his eye was similar to one of pity, and Peter knew enough to feel dread pool in the depths of his gut.That had lead him to where he was now, outside of Rita’s room, hand poised to knock. He swallows, wondering why he feared the plucky secretary so much before realizing she was the one person Juno trusted the most, and whose advice Juno would surely listen to. His fear grows.





	Who are you, Peter Nureyev?

**Author's Note:**

> Oml I’m so sleepy  
> Tw:  
> Mentions of violence, nothing too graphic  
> Brief mention of abuse  
> Panic attacks(at least, I think that’s what this is) 
> 
> Please tell me if there are any more!

When Rita had asked to talk to Peter in private, he knew it wasn’t going to be fun. The look Juno had given him out of the corner of his eye was similar to one of pity, and Peter knew enough to feel dread pool in the depths of his gut.

That had lead him to where he was now, outside of Rita’s room, hand poised to knock. He swallows, wondering why he feared the plucky secretary so much before realizing she was the one person Juno trusted the most, and whose advice Juno would surely listen to. His fear grows. 

“Come on, Pete,” he whispers under his breath, constantly watching the empty hallway, “you’ve faced worst than a protective secretary whose word the love of your life trusts wholeheartedly. What’s another to add to your list of experience?”

He knocks. 

“Come in!” Her voice is clear despite the thick door separating them. Peter squares his courage and enters the room. 

The room is, quite frankly, a mess. Hundreds of recorded streams lines the shelves, and possibly thousands more in the comms she was currently holding. In the other hand is a bag of chips, unopened but not for long. Peter gets the sudden image of those old Earth movies, where a character would sit intimidatingly, hand caressing a pet or object. The room is dimly lit, since it’s well past sleeping hours, and her computer is on maximum brightness, casting bluish light upon her still figure. She sits on the chair Jet had gotten for her, with tiny wheels on the bottom to allow her to swivel and glide. 

“Mistah Cross.” She blinks owlishly, unnaturally serious and foregoing her usual bubbly personality. 

Peter stands at the doorway, hand against the wall, feeling as if he was about to face the head of a mafia. But worse. “Rita, Julius is fine. You asked to speak to me?”

“Yep!” She nods, popping the ‘p’. “I wanted to talk about Mistah Steel.” 

“Ah, Juno?” He says, crossing arms and leaning leaning against the cool metal. “Yes, what about him?” 

“He ain’t good with people. Or he ain’t good with people he loves, Mistah Cross.” Rita leans forward, and the light shifts around her. 

“What...do you mean?” Peter barely stops himself from fidgeting, curiosity and unease of what he may find out waging war in his mind. 

“They hurt him.” Rita whispers, shoulder dipping slightly. “They hit him and yell at him and he doesn’t do anything. Cause he thinks he deserves it. Cause he thinks it will redeem him from all his mistakes but it won’t because he doesn’t need redeeming.”

“I see.” Rita raises her head, eyes flashing at the icy tone of his voice. 

She nods, lips pursed. “No offense, Mistah Cross, but I need to make sure you aren’t the same.”

“Of course, Rita, that is perfectly unde—“

“So I looked you up.” 

Ice floods his veins, and he feels himself freeze. “Oh.” 

She turns to the monitor, scrolling through dozens of tabs and documents, news articles and certificates and receipts and checks. Hundreds of aliases zip to and fro, and she passes each one of them with detached curiosity. Then, she stops at one photo. 

Wanted: Peter Nureyev

“See, I searched Julius Cross and hacked into some government bases and I found out that you didn’t exists two years ago! Ain’t that something, huh? So I did some more diggin’ and turns out there’s more of you, Nemo Hyacinth, Valentine Shaw, Andrea Chernoff, _Rex Glass, and Duke Rose_.” Peter flinches. 

“So I looked some more, deeper and deeper, and it was hidden almost seamlessly, a record of an orphan from twenty years ago.” Her voice goes soft. “Peter Nureyev, wanted for threatening the stability of New Kinshasa and safety of the people in Brahma.” 

His breathing quickens. “Rita, those records...” Pathetic, his voice is weak, and all he can think of is that red room. Mag. 

“And this was the farthest I could go.” Rita continues doggedly, stopping at the very bottom of the page. “Who are you, Mistah Cross?” Peter Nureyev: thief, murderer.

“I am Peter Nureyev.” Fear. Ice cold fear. He grits his teeth and manages to get this out, at least. “I am...a thief. I was the son of a revolutionary who never existed. I was the son of a thief.”

His knees are locked, and he sags against the wall, feeling the ever familiar waves that are just above his head. Rushing. “I am a murderer. I had killed my adoptive father to save a place I thought to be my home, a place that never was mine but was surely home to thousands of others. I couldn’t—I couldn’t help everyone. I killed him.” 

Rita looks at him over the frames of her glasses, soft and calculating. Peter feels the urge to defend himself and blame himself, to unload every mistake he’s ever made and pay for each and ever one. “And sometimes I’m scared. That I would hurt Juno. God, I already did, Rita.”

Rita stays silent, and Peter continues.

He tells her about the first time they met. How he fell for the detective, how he gave the lady his name, how he left with a wink and a smile. He tells her about the express, how he brought him along a heist, how Miasma had found them. He tells her about the days of torture, how Juno’s mind was stretched thin, and how something was surely going to break. He tells her of when he left, and when he came back, when Juno locks himself in the airlock, when the bomb goes off. 

He breaks down then.

Through soft gasps, he tells her of Juno’s eye. How Juno had pushed himself too far, and how this had strained him beyond control, and how they couldn’t save it. He tells her about the terror, the mind numbing terror and hearing the bomb go off and the silence. He tells her how he find Juno Steel, bloody and bruised and how he gave him an ultimatum. He pushed too hard, too fast, and Juno said yes. He remembers the look in the lady’s eyes, fear and hope and resignation for a promise he would never fulfill. He tells her of an empty bed, the spot that was once warm, cold and empty. 

He tells her of New Kinshasa, of Brahma, of the red-lit room and the blood on his hands. Of a life built out of lies. Of a boy with no name, no past, no home. 

He tells her everything. 

Rita steps up, guiding him to sit on her bed. She takes his shaking hands and holds them in her own. She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Peter tenses, ready to hear her demand that he never go near Juno again. 

“I’m sorry.” She erases every trace of the files she’s dug up, all down to the last digit. 

Peter’s eyes widen in surprise, and he looks at her with wariness and a flicker of hope. 

“What happened to you was horrible, and what happened with you and Mistah Steel was neither of your faults.” She squeezes his hand. “You’re a thief, and you have killed before, Mistah Cross. But that doesn’t make you a murderer, it makes you a hero.”

“I killed the one who raised me, Rita.” Peter says, and his voice breaks. “He wouldn’t turn a knife on me and I had to stop him somehow, and maybe if I had found a way—maybe, he’d still be alive.”

“Maybe doesn’t change now, Mistah Cross,” Rita says gently. “It’s okay to look back, and it’s okay to regret, but it’s not okay to let it define you. For so long, Mistah Steel has defined himself by his mistakes, by his mother’s, and it ain’t healthy. He’s changin’ now, and I’m glad for him.” 

She leans forward and warps her arms around his neck. Her fingers loosely clutch the back of his shirt, and he’s grateful she doesn’t mention the growing wet stains on the sleeves of her blouse. “It’s okay, Mistah Cross, because you’re a better man now. What happened before don’t matter, what matters is what you do now. And if you use your mistakes to remember to not make them again, then that’s the best way you can live your life. And I can tell you love Mistah Steel, and he loves you, so it’s okay, you’re okay. Treat the lady right.” 

Peter laughs wetly, forehead leaning against the crook of her shoulder. “Of course, Rita.” 

“That’s good, cause if you don’t, I’m gonna have to get serious.” She giggles, and pulls back. “I have some comfort streams, do you want to watch?”

“Gladly.” Peter says, eyes raw and hair mussed, the past on his mind and Rita’s words in his heart. He sits on the edge of the bed, watching the mind numbing plot line, and hearing Rita’s conspiracy theories muttered under her breath. 

It due to this that he realizes why exactly Juno trusts Rita so much. After all, he can trust her with his name, can’t he? 

“Oh, and Rita? Could you be so kind as to send me a list of all Juno’s former partners and their addresses?”

**Author's Note:**

> Ughhhhh I can’t do Rita’s voice at All!!  
> I hope this didn’t feel too out of character 
> 
> I just really love the concept of Rita giving Nureyev the shovel talk haha
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
